FCC Needs to Provide Certainty Now on Net Neutrality Rules, OIC Says

"We believe the time is ripe now for the Commission to decisively and conclusively move forward to enact baseline protections to put this issue to rest and remove market uncertainty around investment across the Internet ecosystem,” the OIC said. “The docket proceedings and various stakeholder discussions have demonstrated that there are areas where there is consensus.” Among the areas of consensus, it said, are that “the Internet must be protected, preserved, and incentivized to grow,” that the current Internet policy statement should be “codified as enforceable rules” and that net neutrality rules should apply to wireline. There is also consensus, the group said, “that there should be some rules that apply to wireless broadband Internet access providers."

"Of course, there still exists a gap on some key issues,” especially on rules for wireless, OIC said. “These gaps where stakeholders are not able to agree represent an opportunity and responsibility for the Commission to use its expert technical and legal resources to make decisions that will bridge those gaps, based on the information presented in the various, relevant public dockets."

Many industry commenters argued that for the Internet to thrive the FCC should not impose any-device or any-application mandates on wireless carriers or otherwise limit their ability to manage their networks, as part of net neutrality rules.

AT&T said the record is clear on the “irrationality and technological infeasibility” of imposing net neutrality obligations on wireless platforms. “Intense competition has led to lower prices, massive capital investment, and fast-paced innovation, all of which produce enormous consumer benefits,” AT&T said. “Only one conclusion can follow: the wireless broadband marketplace presents no regulatory problem to solve.” AT&T said the FCC should refocus on “real solutions to real problems,” such as the “looming spectrum crisis that threatens to place a chokehold on wireless broadband networks."

The FCC should not impose net neutrality rules on managed or specialized services or on wireless, Verizon and Verizon Wireless said in joint comments. “In neither case is there evidence of an actual problem that needs to be addressed by regulation."

"The Internet is, and always has been, a managed Internet,” TIA said. The FCC must allow each carrier to make use of “specific management tools depending on its own network and associated operational considerations.”

Mobile Futures submitted a new paper by Rysavy Research making the case that wireless carriers must be able to offer different tiers of service to their customers and not face restrictions as a result of net neutrality rules. “Different applications have fundamentally different requirements when it comes to communications attributes such as rates of packet loss, data throughput, and packet delay,” the paper said. A non-interactive video stream, for example, “demands a relatively constant level of throughput, but it is largely insensitive to delay,” the paper explains. “A user is not usually concerned that a video clip is a few seconds delayed relative to when it was transmitted. This couple of seconds delay, however, would be disastrous for voice communications.”

The Free State Foundation said the FCC deserves credit for taking the time to ask more questions rather than “rushing” to adopt net neutrality rules. But the group said the FCC should pay close attention to opposition to net neutrality rules in Congress. “Carving out differential regulatory regimes for wireless and ’specialized services’ may unnecessarily entangle the Commission in a troublesome regulatory thicket by posing ongoing definitional problems and by compromising unnecessarily the goal of technological neutrality,” FSF said.

Wireless handsets, operating systems, and applications are all developing without net neutrality rules, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation said. The FCC should recognize that wireless networks are different than wireline “due to their spectrum-related bandwidth constraints, but also because their bandwidth costs are higher and the application mix they support is more heavily tilted toward communication than content,” ITIF added.

The National Organizations, a consortium of 24 minority and women’s rights groups, also urged the commission to take open Internet regulations slowly. The group argued in its comments that some specialized service agreements -- including some prioritization offerings -- are the best way minority-owned or other disadvantaged start-ups can get off the ground. Rather than adopt “draconian” regulation, the FCC might instead require broadband providers to disclose their network management and other business practices in their service agreements, the National Organizations said.

With transparency rules in effect, the National Organizations said in its filing, the “inherent ’shaming culture’ of the Internet, which does not tolerate online abuses and focuses consumer attention upon them, will also provide a powerful market and legal incentive for providers to act in the consumers’ best interest.” The National Organizations also castigated the FCC for allowing the net neutrality debate to distract it from what the National Organizations called widespread discrimination in high-tech jobs and media ownership. The size of the commission’s Equal Employment Opportunity docket in 2004-2007 had fallen 96 percent from the EEO docket in 1994-97. The National Organizations accused the FCC of turning “a blind eye to these and other discriminatory practices.”

The Internet Innovation Alliance agreed about the need for transparency rules and suggested that specialized and managed services will actually “complement … not supplant” the open Internet. The Alliance said the model for open Internet-plus special services is the cable industry, which allows its customers to pay for special movies, sports and other events on demand while customers still enjoy their basic cable package. Specialized or managed services will also help build up smart grid and modern digital health networks, the Alliance said. “Useful managed services such as smart meters and wireless health monitors could be made more widely available to those who want them without impairing or impeding the broadband experiences of those who do not,” the Alliance said.

The Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance urged the commission to continue its “hands off” approach to Internet regulation, but said “any limited regulatory intervention” should exempt specialized and managed services. ITTA also opposes disclosure regulations, which it says would burden industry with “costly administrative processes … that moreover implicate highly confidential and proprietary information.”